


Cat's Cradle

by Grimmseye



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Feeblemind, Gen, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-28 00:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13892448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmseye/pseuds/Grimmseye
Summary: Curiosity killed the cat, he was warned.And Angus was always armed with a smile, with the words,but satisfaction brought it back.





	Cat's Cradle

**Author's Note:**

> Idea brought on by [Colorora](http://archiveofourown.org/users/colorora) from the Taz Fic Writer's discord!

Angus McDonald is a little too smart for his age.

_Curiosity killed the cat,_ he was warned.

And Angus was always armed with a smile, with the words, _but satisfaction brought it back._

He always thought he wanted to have a normal life. To go to school, to play a sport, to settle into the nuclear family: mom and dad and child. All the things he never got growing up are suddenly right in the palms of his hands, everything he longed for, everything he dreamed of, and —

— It’s _boring._

He’s not a schoolboy. He’s not a teacher. He’s the student of Taako, he’s a member of the Bureau of Balance, he’s the world’s greatest detective.

It’s time for him to start acting like it.

 

 

 

Taako makes dinner for seven that night. Magnus arrives with boisterous glee and a bone-crushing hug. Barry cuts open the space in his living room to let three reapers through after work. Merle arrives second-to-last, but that’s to be expected.

Angus is pretty good about punctuality. Still, they don’t exactly have a good track record with trains. Maybe he got delayed. Maybe he’s off investigating a murder — Taako’s got his stone of farspeech around his neck if the kid needs to ring.

Lup helps him in the kitchen; his hands still shake when he cooks. He reaches for the chicken breast, and then falters. He pushes it aside, and Lup takes over, and Taako breathes out a long sigh before he turns to the bowl of potatoes instead.

He’s knows it’s irrational to be afraid, but it doesn’t erase the quiver in his palms.

 

 

 

Missing persons. Ages range from seven to sixteen so far. Young boys, all homeless, the sort that wouldn’t be missed until the numbers ratchet up too high.

The estimate is in the dozens already. Reports of disappearances have been filed and ignored for months now, the police turning a blind eye to the homeless vanishing from the streets. Then a boy doesn’t return home from school and suddenly all of Neverwinter is in a frenzy.

Angus knows he’ll be exhausted if he tries to linger on morality too heavily through his life. Still, he can’t shake that flicker of disgust. They didn’t care until the schoolboy went missing. A child from the back alleys? Didn’t lift a finger.

They wouldn’t have lifted a finger if it was —

Well. No point dwelling on that now. He’s smart, he’s brave, he’s useful. They all keep him around as long as he’s useful.

 

 

 

 

“Ango here yet?”

Magnus pokes his head around the doorframe. Taako puts the salt-shaker down. No pink.

“Not yet,” Taako says, voice breezy.

“He’s gonna miss dinner.” Magnus frowns. It’s a good dinner, if Taako does say so himself. Smells _fantastic._ It’s a flash of nostalgia, too: he and Lup haven’t cooked like this for around a decade now. The whole crew isn’t here, but it’s still family: his sister, his friends, his lover, his kid.

Well. It’s most of his family.

“He’ll be eating cold food, then,” Taako scoffs. The chicken is almost ready.

They can always heat the food up with barely a spark of magic. Angus will have to ask someone else to do it, though — Taako isn’t gonna.

 

 

 

Being a kid is his greatest weakness, and his greatest advantage.

He’s small, even for his age. People don’t see him. People don’t hear him, don’t _listen._ They’ll let a killer slip between their fingers cause who’s gonna listen to the eight year old who saw the bloodstains on the soles of his shoes?

But people don’t see him. People don’t hear him. A child flies under the radar, guards dropped, unsuspecting of big wide eyes and round, soft cheeks.

The Neverwinter police know him enough to actually listen to him by now. He’s armed with a crossbow and a wand and all the charm and innocence of an eleven year old boy. The moment he finds the perp, they'll be as good as caught.

It’s creeping into evening as Angus sits at a park bench just off the road from a local school. He’s marked off the area of each disappearance, the timeframe, the order of them all. No repeats but there _is_ a pattern, each district hit precisely calculated to keep the hounds off his trail. Angus caught the scent, though.

And sure enough, as his feet swing lazily, an eye of clairvoyance circling the area, he spots a figure. Tall, skinny, dressed in common spellcasting robes. He’s a good distance away from Angus’ body, at _least_ thirty yards between them, so he just watches. Watches the man watch him. Watches him lift a hand. Watches his lips move.

Angus’ eyes snap open, his body jolting to leap from the bench and then —

— _and then_ —

 

 

 

They’ve packed dinner all away. It tasted like dust.

Magnus is fidgeting. Lup is pacing, Barry and Kravitz side by side, observing. Merle sits on the couch, but the way his fingers flex betrays his nerves.

“What do you _mean_ you lost track of him?” Taako is clutching his stone of farspeech.

“ _I-I’m sorry, sir.”_ The receptionist of Neverwinter’s city police is stammering. _“Mr. McDonald didn’t say where he was going. I can get the chief on the line and see if he knows —”_

Taako releases the stone. It falls silent around his neck.

He looks up, breath coming out shakey. “Kravitz —” he starts, and the man just steps forward, puts one hand on his arm and summons his scythe with the other.

All three reapers in the room have skulls beneath their hoods. Two of red robes, one a cloak of feathers. Kravitz lifts his scythe and cuts a rift into the air.

 

 

 

They branch out. Divide the city into plots of one thousand feet. Barry, Taako, Merle, Lup: three wizards and a cleric, two were liches-turned-reapers, one communed with the face of the Hunger itself, one —

One just wanted to find his fucking student.

Divination isn’t any of their specialties, but _fuck_ , they’ve pulled off far more impossible feats. Taako can blink into other planes, has died nineteen times, fought the grim reaper and lived, commanded control of a golem created by a man’s dying breath. He can find a _child._ It’s going to be a piece of cake.

_Locate Creature._ He shuts his eyes and envisions that stupid, overly-pleased grin in his mind, and casts his consciousness outwards. He’s just looking for a flicker. Just one little tendril to grasp onto.

Taako opens his eyes. He lifts his stone of farspeech. “Kiddo’s not here,” he reports, “you folks have better luck?”

_“Nothing yet.”_

_“No.”_

_“The brat’s not here either.”_

Taako shuts his eyes. Breathes out a long cursebefore they move on to the next plots.

They’re going to find his boy. They will. They _will._

 

 

 

It takes five casts. Twenty in total, between the four of them. It's barely a mid-level spell but he’s burning up stronger and stronger slots, each one a little more desperate, each failure making his breath hitch.

And then he feels it. Still, and quiet, and small, but it’s him. It’s _Angus_.

Taako can barely get the words out. Three gashes are cut into the air around him and his family steps free, relief and fear and determination set into their faces. Lup sets a skeletal arm around his back, gives him a moment to draw the breath that _she_ doesn’t need before Taako turns on his heel and leads the way.

 

 

 

_Dark small space. Small is good, safe, stay back stay small stay quiet._

_Loud and big — be_ small _be_ quiet _shhhh shhhhh. Heart racing quietquietquiet. Coldhungry but shhhhhhhhhh. Noise bad move bad painfear._

_Light?_

_Noisenoisenoise BAD shhhhhhhhh shhhhhh. Pleasepleaseplease no noise no badscaredloud bright and hot and fear and nononononono —_

 

 

 

The manor is up in flames. Three reapers hover at three points, scythes braced upon the earth. A triangle of shimmering light glazes the ground between them, holds those who sought to flee still, and terrified.

Magnus drags a man who nearly escaped by his ankle. He heaves him into the air, into the barrier between the reapers, lets that final body crash down among the rest of the garbage. His face is set, a quiet fury behind his eyes. “That’s the last one, right?”

“Those are all the souls we saw,” Kravitz says, quiet, cold. He’s not allowed to kill, none of them are, not before it’s time. Reapers are not judges, or executioners. They merely maintain the order.

_Taako_ is under no contract, though.

“Which one of you took the boy?”

He's pleased with how his voice rings out. The whispers, the scramble for magic, it all ceases beneath his words. Thirteen heads turn to him, fear bright in their eyes. They know who he is. Who they _all_ are.

They took the wrong kid.

Merle clears his throat. “Let’s try that again, shall we?” He suggests, sounding perfectly amicable as a field of magic ripples from his feet. Taako shakes it off with ease. “Now. Answer his question. Glasses, curly hair — who grabbed the brat?”

There’s a silence that stretches thin. All of them are going to die, no point in holding loyalty. So finally, a voice pipes up, quivering, “He did.”

A finger is pointing. Tall, skinny.

Taako breathes. Nods. “Mags,” he says.

Magnus steps within the barrier, grabs the man by his fucking throat, and throws him onto the ground in front of Taako.

“Hey, Lup,” he calls. His sister looks up, the golden light in her sockets flashing at him. “You’re not allowed to kill these douchebags, yeah? Why don't you pick how he's gonna die?"

“Mmmmm.” She hums, considering. “I’ll pass. Barry?”

His eye sockets are illuminated with blue. It’s icy, and cold, and then flashes cerulean with a sadistic pleasure as he says, “I taught you guys blood boiling, didn’t I?”

 

 

 

_Small. Dark. Good._

_Quiet. No noise no bright-hot-fear._

_Soft, familiar. Whitefeather and magic and color._

_Look — danger?_

_No: Softwarmlovesafe._

Angus smiles.

 

 

 

Merle casts a light into the room.

It’s a shed. Most would assume it to hold tools, but this one holds a cage. Small, the kind one might keep a dog in, with a grate of thin bars. Taako thinks for a moment that it’s empty, that Angus isn’t here, that he was wrong and his boy is gone, is hurt, is _dead._

And then he sees the small shape huddled in the corner of the cage. Head down, tucked into folded knees, arms curled around his skull. Angus has never looked so vulnerable.

He coos, “Hey, boychik. Got yourself into some trouble, huh? No worries, ol’ Taako and pals are gonna getcha right out of there.”

At the sound of his voice, Angus stirs. He lifts his head, wary. His eyes are wide and scared and glazed, but then they lock with Taako’s, and his face melts into a vacant sort of smile. He crawls forward, a hand pushing against the bars.

“Yeah, I gotcha, pumpkin.” Taako reaches for a lock. There isn’t one. It’s just a latch, one Taako can pry open with his fingers. Angus could have opened that himself, he’s sure.

He breathes in slow. Opens the door, and scoots back to let Angus crawl free. The boy is unsteady as he gets to his feet, stumbles, Magnus catching his hand just in time. Again, Angus smiles that vacant smile. It’s not quite gratitude. Just calm, peaceful happiness.

“You okay, Ango?” Magnus asks.

Angus just smiles.

Taako watches him. “Hey,” he starts, and the kid looks he way. From where he’s kneeling, Taako puts a hand to the front of his wrinkled jacket, and disspells any magic upon him.

Angus keeps smiling.

“Angus?” He tries. Angus blinks, head tilting, lips turned upward. He sways in a distracted manner, just hanging onto Magnus’ fingers, his tiny hand engulfed in the man’s much larger grip.

Taako leans forward, snaps his fingers in front of the kid's face. Angus’s eyes follow them, head turning for the sound, but it’s still _distant._

“Hey, Angus.” And his voice is pitching up now. “Say something, kiddo. You hurt?”

Nothing in Angus’s face says he’s listening. That he _understands._

“Angus,” Taako repeats. It sounds a bit too much like a plea.

“Come on, Taako,” Magnus soothes. “He’s probably just spooked. Right, Ango?” This time Angus tips his head upwards, apparently following the sound of his name. Magnus smiles gently down at him, stroking his hair. “Yeah, it’s okay, kid. Are you hurt? Just nod or shake your head.”

Angus does nothing. Taako’s heart begins to race.

And now even Magnus is frowning, as something distracts the kid and he drops his head again, staring at the ground. His bare feet wiggle on the shed's floor, gaze riveted on their movement.

Something is wrong with his boy. Taako swallows, hard, opens his mouth again.

“Guys.” It’s Merle’s voice that breaks in.

They look to him. Angus does as well, but his smile is slipping. He edges a bit closer to Magnus.

Merle has his soulwood hand covering his eyepatch, his stare fixed on nothing. There’s something _tired_ in his face, the lines on his face aging him by decades.

He shuts that one eye, his brow knitted, takes a breath.

He says, “Do you know what _feeblemind_ is?”


End file.
